Big Winner

This graduation speech created with assistance from Tucker Max is one of the best speeches I’ve ever read.

http://www.festeringass.com/archives/post_1.phtml

Some highlights:

“…pay attention to those around you who are successful, and do what they do. As novel and advanced as my game may seem to you, I probably only invented about one percent of it, if that. Almost everything I know I learned by watching and imitating people older and more successful than me. In high school, you learn how to act like a senior by watching the seniors when you are an underclassman. In life, you learn how to be successful by watching the people who achieve success. Figure out what they do that the others aren’t doing, isolate their successful behavior, and imitate it. You won’t become them, but by trying to implement their actions you will naturally develop your own style.”

“A corollary to this is to READ. A LOT. Humans have been recording history for about 10,000 years. You won’t be the first person to go through anything that you go through. My grandfather told me: ‘an idiot repeats his mistakes. A smart man learns from his mistakes. But a genius learns from the mistakes of others.’ The more you read, the more you learn. The more you learn, the more you can figure out how life works and what to do and what not do without having to screw up first. “Even so, go live life. Go out and experience everything you can. Do everything that you have an opportunity to do. Wisdom is most often earned and not learned, and the best way to get earned wisdom is to experience as much as possible. The more you see of the world, the smaller and more understandable it becomes.”